


Friendship Points

by Pastelglitchesxx



Series: Flip Envy Into Ecstasy (Arrowverse Polycule AU) [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angry Caitlin Snow, Angst, Caitlin Is Burntout, Cisco takes a turn being the mom friend, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Killersnow, Lonely Caitlin Snow, One Shot, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Protective Cisco, Protective Cisco Ramon, Queerplatonic Relationships, Sad Caitlin Snow, The Flash (TV 2014) Season 4, This takes place after Ralph's death and Frost's disappearance, biromantic Caitlin Snow, it's so obvious you guys but I guess you could see it as friends if you squint??, like mild but emotional angst y'know???, mention of Ronnie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24036439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastelglitchesxx/pseuds/Pastelglitchesxx
Summary: “Caitlin?” Cisco walked into his friend’s lab. She was still sitting in her revolving chair, perfectly still safe for her fingers impatiently tapping on the cover of the book that swallowed her attention. Her coffee cup hadn’t moved an inch since Cisco had last seen her. “How long have you been up?”
Relationships: Cisco Ramon & Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon/Ralph Dibny (implied), Killer Frost/Caitlin Snow
Series: Flip Envy Into Ecstasy (Arrowverse Polycule AU) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020049
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Friendship Points

**Author's Note:**

> Fourth ever fanfiction! This goes similarly to my other fics. Concerned starting, angsty middle, swifts into comfort and sorta fluffy, happy ending!!! There is heavily, HEAVILY implied Killersnow content, but uh y'know it can be taken as friends too. Platonic Ciscait. They're very platonic. This is not Cisco x Caitlin romance. They're bros and are important to each other, but I have not purposely shipped them in this fic. You can take it as such if you want, but let it be known that this was originally for Killersnow

“Caitlin?” Cisco walked into his friend’s lab. She was still sitting in her revolving chair, perfectly still safe for her fingers impatiently tapping on the cover of the book that swallowed her attention. 

Instead of reading the book off the desk right in front of her, she preferred pulling her knees to her chest and using her legs as a surface. Her coffee cup hadn’t moved an inch since Cisco had last seen her. That was almost seven hours ago. By the squinting, Cisco could tell the bags under her eyes had weakened her vision. She had a blanket spilling over her shoulders from behind, brought by Cisco so she would be warm when she passed out studying at her desk.

He could still make out Killer Frost’s bright blue denim jacket tied tightly around Caitlin’s waist. 

The image of his missing sorta-friend flashed in his head. He pushed it down.

“Cait?” He said again, louder this time. “You have to get some sleep, girl. How long have you been up?”

Caitlin waved him off, shrugging her shoulders without looking up from her book. “I need to finish this,” she said. “This book, it’s on how Dissociative Identity Disorder sets up amensic walls as a childhood defense mechanism. If I could break through those walls and get a look in Killer Frost’s memories like she could see mine, it could help me find her.” 

Cisco placed a concerned hand on her shoulder. “You’ve already told me that theory.” 

Caitlin didn’t seem to hear him. Her focus unmoved from Killer Frost and any means of finding her.

Cisco bottled up a sigh. He took his troubled gaze from Caitlin to the seemingly endless post-it notes stickered around her usually spotlessly clean workspace; all leftover conversations from the two system members. Frost’s blue ones were barely hanging out by a thread after being taken off and stared at before being stamped back on by Caitlin so many times. 

Things like, _Thanks for the badass new jacket Got some blood on it, don’t worry it’s not ours - *KF_ to _Broke the thermostat again. I think it hates me - *KF_ and _So, hypothetically, how would you feel if I went to Burning Man? - *KF._

Cisco felt a pang inside his gut. He wasn’t as close to the smug Ice Queen as Caitlin, that’s for sure, but it wasn’t like the two were strangers. They worked together and had fought side-by-side. They weren’t buddy-buddy, but Cisco had hoped to become close to his best friend’s alternate state of identity.

Killer Frost, no matter how rude, dismissive, name-calling and ignorant she was, protected Caitlin. They at least had that in common.

Cisco snapped himself out of thoughts. _What, you gonna throw yourself a pity party?_ _You barely knew the chick._ He glanced at Caitlin _. It’s her significant other that’s gone dormant._

Quickly, he swiped one of the post-its, folded it and went to tuck it into the page Caitlin was currently on. He almost had the chance to shut the book, but when Caitlin’s tired eyes landed on the post-it, suddenly the sleepiness was gone. 

Caitlin rocked forward, sending a fast swat at Cisco. “What the hell are you doing?” She screamed with a violent hiss as the bounce of her legs made the book jump in her grasp. “Don’t touch that!” 

Cisco backed away before her swatting could land on him. “Caitlin! Jesus!”

“I-I didn’t actually hurt you,” she stated quickly, her stammers sounding apologetic. “Just… don’t touch anything.”

She picked up the post-it Cisco had used as a makeshift bookmark with shaky hands. Her eyes were slow and unfocused as she gently unfolded it. Her lips incoherently mumbled out the words Cisco hadn’t had the strength to read _._

 _“You told Iris about our little love letters, Caity?”_ She spoke in quiet whispers. _“I’m impressed. What’s next, lovergirl? Holding hands, walkin’ on the beach? Can’t wait. - *KF.”_

Caitlin reread the passage at least six times before Cisco noticed the writing on the back. It was Frost’s handwriting. _This is the last one I got down before going after DeVoe with Vibeboy and the rest of the gang—_ he could almost hear her smug, echoing voice, confident and playful. She would laugh at this part, and tilt her head and let her eyes shimmer dangerously, as if showing off for someone. Cisco had always wondered who she put on the show for. _Don’t worry about us, Caity, I promised I would never let anyone hurt you, yeah? Have faith in your other half. Love, KF._

Softly, she folded it again and carefully hid it inside the pages of her book. 

She slammed it shut. “I’m sorry for trying to hit you.” Caitlin looked at him, finally. Cisco stared back at her.

He had thousands of things he wanted to say to her _. It wasn’t your fault_ was the most prominent one. They’d both been caught off guard and had lost people important to them. Cisco couldn’t blame Caitlin for blaming herself or for pushing herself into burnouts. He only knew his perspective, not hers. He hadn’t felt his other half get severed from within him like a sawed-off limb. How could he ever know what that was like? How could he ask her to tell him? How would he know what to say if he didn’t even have all the details on what happened? He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to know what to say. Cisco prayed that he would suddenly get the ability to know how to talk to his best friend. 

Questions jumbled and fought in his head.

But he didn’t ask any of them. He didn’t know Frost as well as Caitlin Snow obviously did. It wasn’t his place to interrogate her on something so personal and private. Frost was something of a friend to him, but to Caitlin, they were a part of each other. Two halves of the same coin, people cut from the same thread, women connected by a red string. The pair were practically soulmates.

So instead, he asked, “Are you okay?” 

Caitlin stared at him as if she didn’t know the meaning of the word. In any other situation, Caitlin wouldn’t hesitate to recite the definition of the word _okay_ and find a loophole to define herself as it, no matter if she was actually okay or not. He missed that version of his friend.

Caitlin dropped her face on her knee with a yawn. “I just… I miss her so much.”

Cisco wanted to awkwardly stuff his hands in his jeans, but the book he loosely held stopped him. “Me, too.” 

It was small and simple. Yet it was all he could make himself say. At least it got a little smile from Caitlin. 

A sigh escaped her. “I’m... really tired, Cisco.”

He stepped forward again. “How long has it been since you got eight hours?” 

“Is never an acceptable answer?”

Cisco almost smiled. She was making jokes again. Caitlin was one of the best pun-makers out there; he didn’t want her to lose that, too. 

“How long has it been since you’ve slept at home?”

Caitlin looked away, biting her bottom lip. “... I can’t go back to my loft, Cisco.” Her voice broke. “I— I-I just _can’t.”_

When she lifted her head out of her lap, it was turning red. Her eyes had glazed over with puffiness, tears threatening to escape. Snot was about to roll from her nose. “All her stuff is there. It’s just filled with _her.”_

When she laughed, it felt like something was breaking inside her, like she was a glass mirror that had stuck together for so long and had finally shattered. 

The tears that swelled in her eyes raced down her face, free at last. “Did you know she bought fridge magnets? The letters you see in movies? Every morning, she wakes up, puts on coffee for me, and rearranges a new stupid _fucking_ joke on that fridge. Stuff like _I promise I won’t kill this villain-of-the-week! I only have ice for you_ and _Remember to chill out if you get stressed today.”_

“She was thoughtful like that.” Caitlin sniffled, wiping her face with Cisco’s blanket. “Cheesy, too.”

Her head turned to the post-its practically drowning the room. “She didn’t deserve this,” Caitlin shakily inhaled. “... I didn’t deserve her.”

“Caitlin—” 

“I didn’t _protect_ her,” Caitlin jumped off the seat, grabbing the book from Cisco’s hands and harshly slamming it on the desk. Her words were temporarily jumbled by the loud bang that echoed from it. “I _couldn’t_ protect her!”

A scoff dropped from her cracked lips. “I felt her get ripped from me and I just stood by getting my ass kicked.” She said as she fell back on the chair, glaring at the notes.

_You’re being too hard on yourself,_ he wanted to insist _. It’s my fault. I was supposed to protect everyone, and now she’s gone and Ralph’s dead._

“You’re right.” 

Caitlin’s head snapped to him. “What?” 

Cisco was surprised by his own voice. He felt a shift in his chest, his insides turning to jelly. He couldn’t look at her. Something knotted in his gut; guilt at the shock in his best friend’s voice. How could he blame her? The annoyed glint in her eyes told him he had gotten to her. She was even too surprised to bite her lower lip.

Cisco sighed. “You’re right, Cait.” His gaze moved to her pale face. “You didn’t protect Killer Frost. _She_ protected _you.”_

She shook her head in disregard, “You don’t know what you’re—”

“I do know.” He argued. “I was there, Caitlin. Frost would have died to defend your family.”

 _“‘Died,’”_ Caitlin quoted, rising from her chair to glare in his face. His choice of words had triggered her. There was a bitter fire lighting in the sorrel that was her eyes. His choice of words had ignited something; something desperate, something cruel. He stepped back as she ambled closer. That feeling in his gut suddenly felt wrung. 

He had never been afraid of Caitlin. He’d been afraid of losing her, afraid of someone hurting her, afraid that she would hurt herself, but Cisco never actually feared Caitlin-Caitlin. Frost, he had definitely been scared of. A lone Caitlin, though, wasn’t about to be the villain haunting his nightmares. 

When he met her, she was resolved and neutral. Her only true social link was Ronnie Raymond. Caitlin Snow was the analytical medical doctor/scientist of Star Labs, back when it wasn’t being used as a superhero base. She wasn’t particularly intimidating, just… nice. Bland. 

The Caitlin in front of him would kill for the crass woman that had been ripped from her grasp. He didn’t just think that of her. He could feel it like a stomachache, in that short moment where her anguish was peering down at him.

Her voice angrily quaked _. “You think—?”_

“She’s not dead,” Cisco choked out. His words found their footing before his head caught up. “Just missing. We can and will get her back.”

Caitlin squinted at him, trying to decide if he was lying to make her feel better. He couldn’t decipher whether she trusted him. At least, not on this promise.

He let out a held breath when she turned away. “You… Cisco, you don’t know that.”

Her shoulders hiccuped. “You can’t p-possibly know that.”

Cisco put his hand on her shoulder, stepping beside her and giving the ginger a sideways-hug. Caitlin wouldn’t bring her eyes to his. She sniffled, wiping her face with the cuffs of her sleeves. 

Not knowing what to say, he frowned, awkwardly. He could feel his own face starting to leak. He tried to force the tears back, but that awful feeling inside him was starting to overpower him. He hated that two of his closest friends were gone. Ralph’s name made him want to cry, and seeing Frost’s jacket around Caitlin made his fist shake with the desire to pummel a wall. 

His friends were either locked away or _fucking dead._ Who was he trying to fool? No one would blame him for looking for someone to blame.

But the fault didn’t lie in Caitlin. It was Devoe who hurt them. Caitlin’s other half was snatched from under her while Ralph’s body was drained of life and violated by that controlling, waste of life smartass. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

Cisco didn’t realize that he had stopped fighting the tears until Caitlin looked at him. Her resentment quickly culled. Her arms immediately fell over him, pulling him into a hug. He could feel her cold tears fall on his back, in contradiction to the warm snot and wet sobs that he finally, finally let go. 

He barely heard Caitlin’s whimper. “I’m sorry for being a… y’know.”

Cisco sniffled, “I’m sorry—” 

“For _what?”_ Caitlin tried to laugh, but she choked on her own breathing.

“I don’t know,” he replied with the same crack, a smile somehow placing on his face. “I just feel sorry.”

Caitlin swayed Cisco’s dark hair, which was sticking to his damp face, behind his ears. “It wasn’t your fault, either.”

Cisco licked the snot from his lips, loosely joining their hands and shaking his head. He didn’t allow his smile to falter. “Don’t quote me, doc.”

“You don’t own the phrase,” Caitlin teased as she pulled her cuffs to his face, “it’s not copyrighted,” she further cleaned off his tears, making a grossed-out expression at how snotty her shirt was. “I can say it however much I choose.”

“Nope. I totally bought it. You owe me money now.” 

“And, pray tell, where did you get this money? We don’t get paid.” 

“Pardon? We are paid in badassery and friendship points, madam.”

“You bought the copyright to _‘it’s not your fault,’”_ she said with a deep impression of his voice and finger quotes, “with friendship points, then?”

Her terrible impressions made him grin. “Now you’re getting it.”

Caitlin dramatically scoffed, stepping back into her office and finally taking a sip of her now-cold coffee. “You’re terrible.”

He bowed. “Why, thank you.”

A soft smile formed on her lips. She blinked at him, pulling in some air for herself. She managed an accidental glance at the bright leather jacket tied fiercely around her waist. Cisco could see her heart sink a little. 

She managed to bring the smile back, if not have it sit a little heavier on her face. “I, um… I think I should get some sleep.”

With a nod, he offered his hand. “My car’s waiting in the parking lot.”

Caitlin returned the nod gently. She took another look at the office, slowly noting everything she would have to clear tomorrow in her head. The post-its, some blue and written in the messiest of hand-writing, others yellow and curled in artful cursive, could be used as bookmarks from now on. The days of using her legs as a desk would be no more; she would use her actual desk. She promised herself she would have no more use of Cisco’s small blanket. 

So she grabbed it, dragging it over her shoulder, and faced him with a humble beam to her expression.

Caitlin hesitantly took his hand in her grasp. When he smiled at her, she knew that she didn’t have to carry this burden alone. She had people that would be there for her.

They both did. It would do them good to remember that they would never be the villains in each other’s dreams, much less in one another’s story. To Caitlin, Cisco would always be her best friend, emotional support nerd and partner in crime-fighting, not someone she had to work against. Definitely not someone deserving of her mistrust.

They both looked back at the office. 

Caitlin couldn’t find the strength to stare at something in particular. It was more taking it all in; what she had let herself become in the absence of Killer Frost. Caitlin knew that Frost wasn’t someone she absolutely needed to survive. Caitlin could handle the surviving on her own. She had built a life for herself this long, and it wasn’t going to fall into shambles like it had when Ronnie was taken from her. 

Caitlin had family like Cisco now. And she wanted Frost to be a part of that family again.

“I love her.” Caitlin admitted, more to herself than anyone.

“I know.” said Cisco. Frost was an entirely different entity than Caitlin; she was cold, cruel and somehow lit a wildfire with ice inside Caitlin’s mind. There weren’t many people who could do that to such a stern woman. “We’ll get her back.”

He didn’t know if they would get her back. He hoped for it, though. He built the idea in his mind and found that the terrible pit inside him had shrunken at the idea. Their hope sprung from despair. 

“‘Hope breeds eternal misery,’” whispered Caitlin.

Cisco shrugged. “Misery wouldn’t be so bad if we had them.”

Caitlin could picture Killer Frost and Ralph Dibney arguing over something stupid in her head. She chuckled at the image. 

Cisco allowed himself to breathe a bit. “Ready for me to uber you to your loft?”

Caitlin looked at him with eyes that smiled. “What are we waiting for?”

The book rested neatly and forgotten on her desk.


End file.
